A Nomadic Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 4) (29 page)

Babies and ghosts and visitors in gold lamé.  Marcus was no stranger to big magic—and all of those spells, regardless of how they’d been done, needed a circle—or a spellcaster in his prime.  Dot.

Soldiers under the steps and teasing voices in his head.  Perhaps simply random chance and fraudulent dreams.  Or not.  Dot.

He watched as the others filed in, helping themselves to cookies and quiet conversation.

He listened, in a surreal bubble, as Kevin carefully recited the facts they’d discovered.  As minds and voices worked together to connect the dots.  He let them say their pieces—it only confirmed what he already knew. 

Dots and lines.  Without Kevin’s quiet bravery, he’d never have found the courage to look.

Mists that were dangerous, but not evil.  Dot.

And a ghost that amused small girls with purple eyes.  The last of the lines connected.  Marcus shuddered.  He looked down at the beautiful, warm, live girl sleeping on his chest.  And then he looked up at the room, bubble gone.  “I need to go to the mists.”

Conversations stopped in mid-sentence.  Moira turned gray.

He avoided her eyes, seeking those of the boy who had taught him of courage.  “I need to find my brother and collect more data.”  He nodded at Kevin.  “Of all of us, you’ve been the one least afraid to look—and you’ve found the most answers because of it.”

“We know a lot.”  Kevin looked down at Morgan’s dreaming face, and then up at Marcus, eyes pleading.  “Maybe we know enough.”

Marcus felt the terror behind his words.  And the love.  He tugged the unresisting boy in for a hug.  “We might.”  His eyes circled around the room, and finished with his aunt.  “But I can’t take that chance.”

~ ~ ~

Sophie held her husband’s hand.  Their part of this circle would be easy.  Roots and rocks.  It was Elorie, currently sitting with tiny Aislin in her arms, who would stand in harm’s way.

And Elorie who was fiercely arguing for that right.  She glared at Jamie.  “I’m the strongest Net witch we have.  You can code anything you want between now and morning, but if Uncle Marcus is wandering off into the mists, I’m damn well going to be the one holding the rope.”

“We can put Net witches in each trio, manage magical affinity that way.”  Jamie drew lines in the air as he talked, a witch diplomat at the end of his tether.  “There’s no reason for you to take all the risk.”

“There is,” said Elorie softly.  “We don’t have four Net witches of decent power over the age of twelve.”

She didn’t have to say anything more.  Dissent in the room vanished.  No one wanted witchlings anywhere near this circle.

Sophie closed her eyes, hiding tears.  She didn’t want the sister of her heart anywhere near it either. 

“How can we help?”  It was Moira, voice quavery, who broke the silence.

“You can hold my baby girl.”  Elorie touched the top of her daughter’s head, bald as a Nova Scotia beach boulder. 

Sophie fretted at the sidelining of their oldest witch—and then realized what Elorie really asked.  The grandmother and daughter of her blood, together.  An anchor, rooted in ancient women’s magic.

The request brought a solidity to Aunt Moira’s aura that hadn’t been there for weeks.  Mike squeezed her hand—he could see it too.

Elorie turned next to Nell and Jamie, trio leaders for fire and air.  “I need you to spellcode safeguards.  Whatever this circle touches, I want it to stay in the circle.”

Lots of nods—they’d have all the help they needed.

“We have an idea.”  Devin stuck his hand up from over in the corner, Lauren in his lap.  “We’re thinking it might be a good idea to include this sexy wife of mine in the water trio.”

Sophie blinked.  Lauren was an impressive mind witch, but she didn’t have a stitch of water power. 

For the first time since the meeting started, Marcus leaned forward, eyes intent.  “Why?”

Devin shrugged.  “When Jamie was up there last time, he used water and air to move, but he cast out with his mind.  We’re thinking that if we can blend Lauren’s power into the water stream, and Elorie can shovel it all up to you, you’ll be able to reach out both together.”

It broke every rule of circle magic.  And every witch in the room was seriously considering the idea.  Sophie felt Mike’s hand, linked in hers.  “The bond between the two of you is strong—you’d know how to mesh energies by now.”

Lauren’s spluttered laughter decreased the tension in the room several degrees.

Sophie grinned.   She hadn’t been thinking about
that
in particular, but it would help as well. 

“It must still be three.”  Moira sounded firm on that point.  “Can you manage the water trio without Lizzie?”

“Yeah.”  Devin sounded equally firm.  “It’s bad enough we need to use Sierra.”

“It’s not a death circle,” said Marcus dryly.  “I’m glad you all seem so sure I’m coming back.”

The unspeakable had finally been said.

And it was the oldest witch in the room who answered.

“Oh, you’re coming back.”  Moira sounded like she was taking tea orders.  “I’ve asked Morgan to fill a nappy at just the right time.”

Sophie watched in awe as a man about to face the fear that had shadowed his whole life laughed until tears ran down his face.

Over baby poop.

~ ~ ~

It was always thus, far back in history.  Men prepared for war—and women wept behind them.

Moira leaned over her tea cup, willing it to hold her up.  And willing the sense of dread in her heart to lessen just a little.

It wasn’t war that called Marcus.  It was truth.

And fatherhood.

She didn’t turn as the back door slid quietly open and strong arms wrapped around hers.

She gripped Elorie’s hands, an old woman clinging to young life.  “I can’t lose them both, darling girl.  I just can’t.”

“We won’t.”  Her granddaughter’s eyes were fierce.  “We know how to hold him now.  And he knows how to come back.”

It shamed her that she doubted.  But the blood in her veins couldn’t forget.  The mists had won far too often.

Chapter 21

Marcus stood on the rock promontory of Evan’s beach, the first rays of dawn teasing the sky in front of him.  The mists were strong still—but the light was coming.  A time carefully chosen.

For him, it would be the time of seeking.

Either there was a place, somewhere in the in-between, where his brother cast spells and reached his magic back out into the world.

Or the mists were only pure, enveloping evil, as he’d believed all his life.

He needed to know.  If he had an ally in the mists, he had to find out. 

He could feel his circle behind him, standing strong in the pre-dawn light.  Moira sat a half-mile away in her garden, Aaron and the twins with her.  They’d all refused to leave Fisher’s Cove.

They’d refused to leave Elorie.

Adam was with Kenna and Morgan, barricaded in Realm and protected by an irrationally large contingent of guardian angels.

Marcus was grateful for every last one of them.

He cast one last look over Evan’s beach—and then turned to the circle at his back.  Time to seek his brother’s soul. 

The traditional words of Devin calling water steadied the heart bashing around in his chest.  He waited as the other elements joined the circle, a tight and competent flow of power woven by the strongest witches of his generation.

The four points complete, Elorie held her arms to the sky, pendant clasped in her right hand.

“I call the power that lives as mine

A web unending, living vine

That holds us all, woven as one,

Dark and shadows, mists and sun.

Touch the magic most like self

Form a bridge, a flying shelf.

Carry deep and carry back

The soul joined to this magic’s track.

Hold him thus to me and four times three,

As I will, so mote it be.”

He had a moment of surprise—it was a new call, and the imagery reached deep into his ribcage. 

And then she poured power his direction, and all he could do was grab the lightning strike.  It blasted through him, water through a sieve, punching holes in his magical skin as it went.  He was a flea riding a fire hose, all sense of direction lost in the tumult.  Bloody hell—flying through space like a damn rocket, and no idea if he was even headed the right direction.

We know which way east is
, sent Lauren, humor not entirely masking the strain in her mental voice. 
When the rocket ride ends, have your snorkel and fins ready.

He struggled to figure out what part of the torrent was actually his power—and then decided it didn’t matter.  He gave over to the magic, reaching for the soul that was twin to his.

And ran headlong into the freezing mists of hell.

~ ~ ~

Marcus opened his eyes to a halo of light and a woman’s dulcet voice singing a strange kind of lullaby.

Gods.  If this was heaven, he’d taken a rather large wrong turn.  He strained his brain to remember.  A rocket ride, and then… nothing.

“Awake now, are you?”  A face bent down closer to his.  “I think he’s conscious.  You better come on over before he tries to pop me one.”

Marcus was pretty sure Aunt Moira’s rules about not hitting girls extended to heaven.  Or wherever he was. 

A young face swam into view.  And this time, even in the shadow and light, he knew who it was.  With all the longing of forty-three years, Marcus reached out to touch his brother. 

And discovered he couldn’t move at all.

“Nimwit.  Hang on a minute.”  The boy with Evan’s face waved his hand a couple of times.  “Sorry, I had to hit you with a stasis spell when you panicked in the mists.”

He hadn’t panicked.  He’d worked very, very hard not to panic. 

Gingerly, expecting to shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment, Marcus sat up.  And then did the thing he’d waited an eternity to do. 

He grabbed his brother in a stranglehold of a hug and let the maelstrom he’d contained every day of those forty-three years go.  Guilt and longing, love and rage, and the murderous need of a small boy who’d felt half his soul ripped away, all collided in the raging storm that had once been Marcus Buchanan.

He had no idea how long he sat there holding Evan.  He knew only that when he let go, the cells of his body all had new neighbors—and a lake of tears dried on the ground around them. 

If Evan’s face spoke true, the tears weren’t all his.

For a while longer, Marcus just looked, drained of the feelings that had always been his skeleton.  “Funny.”  His voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in a decade.  And his nose was in desperate need of a hanky.  “I spent so much of my life wishing for this moment.  And not once did I think about what would happen next.”

Evan rested his head on his knees, a simple movement that nearly drowned Marcus in memory again.  “We have some time.  And you have some questions.”

The first leaked out of its own accord.  “Why are you still here?  In this place, whatever it is?”  This place of gray and shadows and odd light. 

Evan stared off into the distance.  “I take care of the souls who come here.”

Marcus looked at the sunny small boy beside him in horror.  “But you’re only a child.”  

Evan smiled, at once sad and amused.  “That’s how you see me—how you remember me.  Physical appearances are mutable here.  They reflect the hearts of those who look, or sometimes, how we see ourselves.”

Marcus blinked.  “How do you see yourself?”

Evan grinned, his eyes twinkling in that way they always had just before he got the both of them into a heap of trouble.  “A blond-haired, blue-eyed version of you.  We’re getting old, bro.”

We.
  A single word that arrowed straight for the bottomless pit of lonely he carried in his chest—forty-three years of “I”—and lightened it. Just a little.

A small hand joined with his.

Marcus looked around, willing the shakes away, and sensed movement in the shadows.  There had been someone with Evan when he’d awakened.  Voices.  “Who are the others?”

“We’re kind of like a way station for departed souls.  Some stay here only moments.  Others, for months or years.”

Marcus watched as a beautiful woman floated out of the shadows, her feet moving in an intricate and beautiful dance.  Light shone from her face.

“That’s Margie.”  Evan smiled.  “She got here after twenty years in a wheelchair and said she couldn’t wait for heaven to try on her dancing shoes.”

Her joy was palpable.  “When did she arrive?”

“Just a few days ago.  She’ll be leaving us soon.”  A tinge of sadness leaked into his brother’s voice.  “The happiest ones generally have the shortest stays.”

Marcus didn’t want to ask what that meant about a man who’d stayed forty-three years.

Two more of the shadows drew closer, the taller one singing the odd, tuneless lullaby Marcus remembered.  Evan waved.  “That’s Victoria and Davey.  He’s our lost little waif.  Vicki takes good care of him.”

Marcus studied the sad little boy clutching a stuffed Kermit the Frog nearly as big as he was.  “What’s wrong with him?”